smooth transition between secondary and higher education – a good practice
TRANSCRIPT
WORKING TOGETHER TO REDUCE EARLY SCHOOL LEAVING
5 COUNTRIES, 2 YEARS, 1 AIM
Smooth transition between secondary and higher education – a good practice
June 2015
Anabela MesquitaPaulino SilvaDiana Vieira
Portugal
Introduction
Measures against ESL addressed in the report from the European Commission (2013) (http://ec.europa.eu/education/policy/strategic-framework/doc/esl-group-report_en.pdf)
Smooth transition between educational levels
Transition between educational levels is critical for students - a time when theymove from often smaller and more supportive schools to larger schools, where theacademic and social demands are higher.
The cost of failing is high. Unsuccessful school transitions contribute to highdropout rates, low on-time graduation rates and low achievement.
Bury College already had experience in this area and had developed a website to deal with this situation - http://bethebest.burycollege.ac.uk/
Portugal – ISCAP (higher education) - decided to import and adapt this good practice
Necessary to provide tools and support to smooth this transition.
LIVE THE BEST @ ISCAP
Participants
Inschool Project Team (Anabela, Diana and Paulino)A Web Solutions Company (Bynet)
ISCAP Students UnionComissions of students from each degreeOther ISCAP students
Structure of the website
BE INVOLVED
ENVOLVE-TE
Academic life
BE HERE
APARECE
Logistics of the schoolEg. Canteen, libray, etc.
BE ON BOARD
ENTRA A BORDO
Location andhow to get there
BE PREPARED
PREPARA-TE
Services availableand their timetable
BE SUPPORTED
APOIA-TE
Support onhow to study
Lessons learned
When the work does not depend only on us, there will always be delays
Student’s union changed, students changedTranslations (made by students) were not ready on time
The solution for the private part took more time to be identified and operationalized than we expectedOther participants had other priorities
All translations needed to be revised by teachers Videos were not ready on time
Evaluation of thewebsite - Results
Evaluation of the website
Developed a survey. Questions based on literature review
Received 43 responsesStudents graded this website with 8 / 10. The majority graded it between 7 and 10.
STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
Website very dynamic and attractiveVideo tour only for one master (want to see videos of other courses)
Links provided are usefulThe list of resources is not complete
Excellent structure of menus and buttons
Images with qualityThere are also some functionalities that the site does not have and respondents would like to find them there (but didn’t say what were those functionalities)
Information is concise, important and
relevant
Involvement of different stakeholders –
teachers, students, students’ union
Accessible
Need to disseminate the existence of the siteTexts are easy to read, graphs and
animation are used in an adequate way
The site meets students’ needs One respondent said that the website has too much information on some issues and scarce on othersThe content of the site is useful
Suggestions for improvement
Add practical informations such as:How to acquire the card to enter the parking
Create a FAQ sectionAccess to important documents
Ex. Form to ask the bus pass sub23
Future
Disseminate its existence – facebook, teachers, students
Continuously improve the website
Compare resuls with those of the Bury colleage (concerning the website). Identifydifferences and similarities.
In 6 months -re-evaluate its impact in early school leaving
http://www.livethebestatiscap.com
Multumesc - Grazie -Teşekkür ederim - Thank you - Obrigado